General Motors' recent recall woes may only be getting worse. According to The Detroit News, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into 60,000 2014 Chevrolet Impala models over concerns relating to the sedan's emergency braking system.

It's easy to confuse the terms 'design' and 'style,' but Jim Hall attempts to explain the difference between the two in his latest Design Handbook video column for Autoline. Before relating the terms to cars, Hall first uses other, non-automotive-related examples to prove his point, such as a well-designed glass versus a well-styled glass. Both do their job well as a result of good designs, he claims, but one stands out more because it also was styled.

When the Chevrolet Sonic came out, the YouTube-tastic band OK Go used it in a music video in which they drove the tiny hatch through a bunch of giant instruments to play their song Needing/Wanting. Two years later, the arrival of the 2014 Chevrolet Impala has got another band in a music-making mind, but this time it's Detroit's Gentlemen Mutineers recording their song Detroit Throttle inside the "library quiet" cabin of the sedan.

It's got a new design, it's got new objectives, it's got a five-star crash-test rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, it's a central part of what could be Chevrolet's "strongest, most competitive retail sedan lineup ever," and now the 2014 Chevrolet Impala has added Turnaround Artist to its resume, going from last to first in Consumer Reports' large sedan ratings.

A day after Ford announced it was scaling back the complimentary maintenance program for its Lincoln brand, General Motors has gone in the completely opposite direction, offering most of its 2014 lineup with free maintenance. Since 2011, Cadillac models have all come with a four-year/50,000-mile complimentary maintenance program, but Chevrolet, Buick and GMC vehicles will now come standard with free maintenance for two years or 24,000 miles for the 2014 model year.

The average resale value of General Motors vehicles climbed to 44 percent last year, matching that of Chrysler and sitting one percent less than Ford, but still 7.5 percent less than Honda. It's a welcome increase from the post-bankruptcy days of 2009 when 36.5 percent was number upon which lease rates were based. According to Bloomberg, even though that puts GM in line with the overall market rate of 46.5 percent, the company figures it can save from $150 million to $200 million if it can incre

Production of the tenth-generation Chevrolet Impala began today, with the first 2014 model rolling of the line at the company's Ontario's Oshawa Assembly plant. The new Impala, which will be produced at General Motors' Detroit-Hamtramck plant in addition to the Canadian location, is expected to make an appearance in showrooms later this month. Impala assembly in Detroit will begin in May of this year.